Scalability and performance metrics for boson sampling devices
Abstract
Linear-optical platforms provide a promising route to demonstrate quantum computational advantage, particularly through the boson sampling problem. While a boson sampling system should be large enough to show the quantum advantage, the size of the boson sampling problem is often restricted by experimental constraints. In particular, as a boson sampling system is scaled up, experimental constraints can limit its effective problem size to permit efficient classical simulation. In this paper, we investigate the theoretical scalability bounds for boson sampling systems under practical experimental conditions, including photon loss, mode mismatch, and input state error. We employ non-negativity conditions for phase-space quasiprobability distribution functions to analyze these effects. In addition, we introduce two device-level metrics, the boson sampling score which measures the usable capacity of a given device and the boson sampling volume which provides a common hardware-level benchmark for comparing different platforms and assessing their access to an advantage-relevant problem size regime. Our results provide fundamental insights into the performance of boson sampling systems under realistic experimental conditions and offer practical guidelines for scaling up boson sampling systems.
Related
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BibTeX
@misc{im2026scalability,
title = {{Scalability and performance metrics for boson sampling devices}},
author = {Dong-Gil Im and Chung-Hyun Lee and Joonsuk Huh and Yoon-Ho Kim},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.14602},
eprint = {2610.14602},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.14602},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Scalability and performance metrics for boson sampling devices
AU - Dong-Gil Im
AU - Chung-Hyun Lee
AU - Joonsuk Huh
AU - Yoon-Ho Kim
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/10
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.14602
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.14602
AB - Linear-optical platforms provide a promising route to demonstrate quantum computational advantage, particularly through the boson sampling problem. While a boson sampling system should be large enough to show the quantum advantage, the size of the boson sampling problem is often restricted by experimental constraints. In particular, as a boson sampling system is scaled up, experimental constraints can limit its effective problem size to permit efficient classical simulation. In this paper, we investigate the theoretical scalability bounds for boson sampling systems under practical experimental conditions, including photon loss, mode mismatch, and input state error. We employ non-negativity conditions for phase-space quasiprobability distribution functions to analyze these effects. In addition, we introduce two device-level metrics, the boson sampling score which measures the usable capacity of a given device and the boson sampling volume which provides a common hardware-level benchmark for comparing different platforms and assessing their access to an advantage-relevant problem size regime. Our results provide fundamental insights into the performance of boson sampling systems under realistic experimental conditions and offer practical guidelines for scaling up boson sampling systems.
ER -